as they were, and skillful with weapons, they went about where they liked and did as they pleased, approaching the inevitable time when they would cr… - Louis L'Amour

I’ve written all these stories without any pornography, without any obscenity. I grew up among sailors and miners and lumberjacks and the roughest kind men in the world, but I never found it necessary to use all that in the stories. I can make them real without that. I think much of that kind of writing is a coverup for lack of real skill.

What so many of us who abhor violence often forget is that we have peace and civilized lives because there were men and women who went before us who were willing to fight for our freedom to live in peace.

Your pa had seven years at sea, mostly in foreign parts. You’ve heard him talk. He’s got a way about him, a way with words. He can make the temple bells tinkle for you, and you can just hear them big old elephants shuff-shuffling along, the priests callin’ folks to prayer and the like. Your pa learned a sight of things most folks never even hear of. I’ve seen scholars back off an’ look at your pa, amazed. You take these Injuns, now. You look at the way they live and you’ll say they don’t amount to much, but what are they thinkin’? What do they know? What memories do they have? They want different things, boy, and they consider different things important. Many a thing we’d give anything to know, they just take for granted. Some of these Injuns, maybe all of them, they’re in tune with something. I don’t know what. But some of them have lost touch with it, and others are losin’ touch. Goin’ the white folks’ way might seem the likely thing to do, but maybe they lose as much as they gain.